


a happy family once more

by stjimmys



Series: time will heal most wounds [1]
Category: Graceland (TV), Graceland - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Adopted Mike Warren, Adoption, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Junkie!Mike, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drugs, Heroin, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Other, Underage Drug Use, briggs just really likes helping people, look in short hes about 19, no one is an fbi agent fyi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-08 05:27:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1928340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stjimmys/pseuds/stjimmys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Briggs just really likes helping people, even though it didn't help his own life in the past.<br/>And Mike? Mike doesn't want to be apart of this guys life. Whatever his name is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. mike's life

**Author's Note:**

> never let me listen to ed sherran's 'the a team' okay just dont its a terrible idea  
> would any of you care for another junkie!mike verse because its fun to write and scary to read over

_White lips, pale face_  
Breathing in snowflakes  
Burnt lungs, sour taste 

_Light's gone, days' end_  
Struggling to pay rent  
Long nights, strange men 

**Mike's Life**

Mike leaned his head back with a sigh, eyes closing slowly as he felt the wicked poison that he was so attracted to entre his blood and tear him apart in a fit of pleasure.

His features were sunken in, pale and somehow young. His lips had gone white from holding his breath, and now they regained their colour slowly and calmingly.

His lungs seemed to be on fire, his heart burning in his chest as the horrible stuff that at some point he called 'a bad omen' made him lurch forward with the needle still inserted in his inner elbow. A man behind him pat his shoulder, and he hissed slightly while withdrawing the small piece of metal that released the dangerous liquid fire into his veins.

This was his daily routine, all the time. Twenty-four-seven, Mike came into this house on the corner of Happiness – the beaches and rented out homes of rich people – and Hell – the bad neighbourhood, people always out for one another's' blood – to take a needle to his delicate skin, injecting something he now called 'his personal heaven', and making him feel as about as good when his mother used to nurse him back to health when ill.

Standing and placing the needle back down on the table and shoving his chair back, he gave a small peace sign to the onlookers. Mike was notorious for visitors when he shot up, being so young. He was only 18, going on 19 in some amount of weeks-or a week. He didn't know anymore. Most people may start young, but they usually did it in privacy. Once they got the courage they'd leave their bedrooms and dining room tables for the outside world, heading to these homes that were called 'Helping Houses' by some. Others simply called them 'Smack Houses'. Mike refused to give these places a title. He didn't like having others know where he was, even though he was positive his friends and family already were keen on what he was doing with his life. 

Ruining it.

Michael kept his head low as he walked out of the place, pulling a large hood over his head and tugging the sleeves down his skinny, pale arms. His veins were still on fire, completely visible and looking like wild wires under his skin.

Quickly, he withdrew a long piece of paper with something that seemed to look green out of his sweatshirt pocket, then pulled a Zippo lighter out of his tattered jeans. He swiped it against his thigh quickly, wincing as it struck and lit up his features on the corner of the road. He lifted the strip of paper to the flame, lighting it and sticking the unlit end into his mouth. He sucked in long and hard, his lungs now getting the same treatment as his veins while he slid the Zippo back into his pants. 

He took a couple long drags, letting the smoke puff out of his nose as if he was a threatening dragon, waiting to unleash fire from his mouth. He coughed quickly and fiercely, the drags he took being so long that the tainted air snuck down his throat and into his lungs.

After a few more deep breaths, the blunt was finished. He threw it at the ground, stomping on it and ending the small fires' life. He sighed deeply, the smoke still in his breath. 

Mike stepped off the sidewalk, not looking around if he had the right away. In this area, the people walking were never surrounded by cars – it was just other people. Like them – druggies, junkies and drunks. All the same, really, in a sense. He stayed silent, the sound of his shoes the only thing keeping him company. The roads around here were quiet – they never really erupted with laughter or screams unless something was actually happening in an alleyway – which Mike avoided at all costs.

However, tonight he wasn't thinking straight. Sure, Mike had street smarts – he basically lived on them. He turned into an alleyway, head hung low. The sky was dark, along with the whole brick and stone walls around him. 

Footsteps approached from behind and quickly grabbed him, holding him to some other persons' chest – no, not just a person, it was a man's body.

"Gotten thinner, kid," the man's voice was rough and worn, but had a history, one Mike barely knew. He was released from the man's' grip, turned at the shoulders and chin pinched hard so his head would lift. The hood fell off his head and slipped down onto his back, his blue eyes almost clear in the haze he was in. "Missed you."

"Yeah, you don't see me much anymore," Mike shrugged, not really caring. He wasn't really into talking in the middle of an alley, where people were notorious for gang rape and beatings. He stared down at his feet, closing his eyes.

The man before him nudge his shoulder, and he leaned up against the bricks as soon as he was pushed. "Kid?"

"I'm still here," Mike shrugged and got off the wall, rubbing his face with his dulled fingernails. He wet his already dry and chapped lips, sighing. "Still alive."

But the man was gone, and another one was there. He wore a hood over his head, the shadows like a veil hiding his features. Mike looked up at him, blinking for a moment before letting them widen. Not this man.

He all but jumped onto Mike, holding him against the brick wall and all but pounding against his ribs and sides. He was laughing his ass off as he beat into Mike's chest cavity, and Mike coughing and fighting against the man. He was weak and caught off guard – completely helpless. 

As soon as the man had his fill, he threw Mike to the side and onto the ground, giving him a nice kick in the ribs before running off. Mike coughed again and again, curling into a ball and spitting up blood. This happened once in a blue moon. Not the spitting blood into the concrete, but the beatings. He pressed a hand against his chest, feeling his heartbeat going on strong and fast. "Still alive..." He let out a laugh. 

Being still alive after a pounding like that was rare in a place like this.

Mike slowly got to his feet, stumbling out of the opposite end of the alley and tripping down the block until he reached a line of apartments. A sign was against a door he stepped to – rent was due. Mike fished his hand into his free pocket, turning up with a few dollars and coins. He sighed and walked into the door, pulling the door closed behind him and coughing up more blood again. It was dark and thick, making his choke on his own lifeline.

Slowly but steadily, he collapsed against the couch in the living room, not even making it to his bed. He couldn't do it to tonight, too worked over by the drugs and the blood that was running rampant in his system. 

Throughout the night, the door opened and closed, people ambling around the apartment as if they owned the place – then again, no one really owned the apartment besides the tenant. Mike stayed silent, at some point some man curling up beside him and holding him close. He never knew how to react to someone's hands around him, on him, touching him in such a way that made him want to shiver.

He stayed still, and not risking any movement to start something. Soon, the men in the apartment left, leaving Mike alone on the couch, with the door shut and his lips still smeared with blood.

"Still alive." Mike whispered into the cushion, chuckling until he felt more blood dribble down his chin in a fit of coughs.


	2. briggs' life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> new chapter/part/whatever you wanna call it. finally. i actually had this sitting around and when i realized that you guys actually want more of this my brain shouted at me to post the next part.  
> sorry that this is a bit short but i honestly have no idea how to write briggs and plus theres this whole thing about his storyline you dont know about yet and i didnt want to bring it up in this part. itll probably be brought up in part four.
> 
> anyway, enjoy!

_And they say_   
_He's in the Class A Team_   
_Stuck in his daydream_   
_Been this way since eighteen_

**Briggs' Life**

Briggs rubbed his hands together while sitting at the bar, a bottle of beer in front of him. He cleared his throat, looking up at the bartender. “Can I get a glass of rum, please?” he lifted the bottle and tipped it back, drinking the last of it before placing it back down on the bar. It had been another one of ‘those’ nights.

Another job gone wrong. Surely, he could have tried harder-should have tried harder-with this one. Seventeen years of age, taking up both alcohol and cigarettes, one of the many combinations that got him both lung cancer and liver poisoning. He found him a week after he had made contact with the boy, he had sworn he’d try his best to keep the kid in a straight line-until that week went past, he called him up, and discovered that he was already gone. 

Again. Another job gone wrong. Gone bad. Gone dead.

The bartender slid the class across the bar and it stopped in front of him. Briggs lifted the glass, tipped it lightly toward the man with a smile before bringing it to his lips and taking a swig.

A few seats down was two men, speaking hushed to each other about some junkie who should most likely be dead around, and not among the living. Briggs sat up and kept his eyes forward, focusing his ear to the side so he could hear the conversation a tad bit better.

“-so I followed him,”

“Really? Why?”

“He’s fucking 19, now drink your beer, Greg.”

A sip of the beer was taken. “What’s his name, man?”

“Starts with ‘M’ or somethin’,”

“That’s all you got?” Briggs turned his head towards the both of them. “Just ‘M’?”

“Who’s askin’?” The man without a name narrowed his eyes. “He’s just some junkie, what’s his name matter?”

“Just a friend,” Briggs lied easily, giving another smile. “I forgot his full name, what can I say? The rum gets to me,” he shrugged and sipped his glass. “And he’s 19 now?”

“His name’s Michael, or Mitchell, or something,” the one named Greg responded, earning him a basic jab in the side. “What, he’s 19 and just a kid.”

“Don’t mean you gotta spread his name everywhere,” the other shook his head. “Why, you lookin’ for him?”

“Yeah, we’ve been out of touch for the past week now, wanted to reconvene. You know where he is?”

“Probably at those old apartments on some god damn street, I don’t know,” he rolled his eyes. “Ask around in the smack houses.”

Briggs’ voice all but caught in his throat. He’d been in those places, and he wasn’t keen on going in them again. But he’ll have to. “Thanks. Point me in the direction?” He finished his rum, and stood up. The man shrugged and gave a couple hand signals and stated turns out of the bar, down the road a few miles, things of the like. As soon as Briggs got out of the bar he got into his rusted-yet trusted, for some reason-Jeep and drove off.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you survived part two. sadly i havent gotten to part three yet, but i plan to. wait around for more. hopefully. thanks for reading.

**Author's Note:**

> tell me if you want anymore of this because originally this was for a friend but now since im posting it i need to know if you guys want more of this  
> if you got this far thank you


End file.
